What is overdotting?

Question

This is concerning performance practice in music.

Answer 1

Overdotting (sometimes called double-dotting) has to do with certain performance practices that were followed during the Baroque period, especially in regards to French Overtures.

It was the practice of exaggerating the time difference between the long and the short notes in dotted rhthms. It was an attempt to "add life" to the rhythm by making the dotted note longer and the following note shorter. Scholars disagree as to what extent and in what context this performance style was practiced.

Musician, composer, teacher.

Answer 2

WRONG!!!! Wikipedia certainly has its fair share of howlers. Overdotting is the technique of 'double dotting' note durations. In musical notation, a dot following a note increases its length by a half. Two dots increase the length by a half and a half-of-a-half (ie three-quarters). Overdotting is used mostly in Baroque music to sharpen the rhythms as it is clear from these of the time that this was standard practice at the time. Therefore, in Baroque music, when a note is notated with a single dot, it is usually played as if it is double-dotted.

Answer 3

It means that note is an octave higher.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbered_musical_notation#Octaves